For about two years already we have been a core partner in setting up “Plan C”, a transition management experiment in Flanders, aimed at catalyzing the societal shift to a world in which materials are managed in a sustainable way.
In a long term oriented participatory process seeded by OVAM (the Flemish Public Waste Agency) and guided by Pantopicon, Resource Analysis & the Center for Organizational and Personnel Psychology a possible future for sustainable materials management in Flanders was envisioned. Smart, creative, entrepreneurial minds from knowledge institutions, business and industry, ngo’s, government agencies etc. formed new alliances and have been smashing heads and hands together to come up with opportunities for radical innovation and structural change. 5 transition teams self-organized into 5 themes:
closing the loop: cradle2cradle & beyond
waking up society: towards a behavioral change
at your service: from products to services
tailored materials: making ‘making’ different
sustainable plastics: towards a new basis
Each of these teams has defined a series of experiments they wish to set up and conduct in view of catalyzing structural change in the way deal with materials.
On October 15th, the current Plan C network members (60-80 heads strong) launches its vision, presents its experiments and invites fellow smart, creative and daring heads and hands to join in at a network-mindsstorm event in Mechelen (Belgium) (note: meeting will be in Dutch).
Our interview with Tom Klinkowstein & Irene Pereyra on their project “a day in the life of a networked designer’s smart things or a day in a designer’s networked smart things, 2030″, led to an exhibition “It’s about time!” at Designcenter De Winkelhaak in Antwerp. Tom & Irene opened the exhibition on June 6th. Thanks again for being here, you were great!
Pantopicon participated in the exhibition with a triple video interview by Nik with 3 of Belgium’s top design talents: Bram Boo, Casimir & Nedda El-Asmar on their reflections about design today, technologies, design in the future, their futures.
Come and check us out! (exhibition on show until August 31st).
From February 1st until March 30th, FACT – the Foundation for Art & Creative Technology in Liverpool – is organising the exhibition ‘sk-interfaces’.
“A groundbreaking exhibition on the uncertain limits between art and science, sk-interfaces explores, materially and metaphorically, the concept of skin as a technological interface. This multi-disciplinary exhibition launches FACT’s Human Futures programme.”
The Human Futures programme is divided into 4 main themes myBody (the biological environment and our relationship to the body), myMind (the digital environment and our relationship to artificial life), myWorld (the physical world and our relationship to the natural and built environment). The MyBody programme to be kickstarted with sk-interfaces, also includes film evenings (e.g. Peter Greenaway’s “The Pillow Book“ on Feb 6, “ORLAN, Carnal Art“ on Feb 27, “Strange culture“ on March 19).
Among the work on showcase at sk-interfaces are “designer hymens by medical artist Julia Reodica [vivolabs], a coat made of blended skin cultures by legendary French artist ORLAN, Jun Takita‘s model brain infused with glowing moss, and biotechnological ‘leather’ growing in the galleries by the Tissue Culture & Art Project“. The exhibition is curated by bio-art specialist Jens Hauser, tapping into science, politics, philosophy and architecture.
On February 8th and 9th, a conference will provide the forum for a more in depth discussion of aesthetic, philosophical, scientific and medical.
The notions of technology moving from 3rd (building, e.g. ambient intelligence) to 2nd (clothing, e.g. smart textiles) to first skin (e.g. dermal interfaces) to within (e.g. implants) is a powerful stimulant for future-oriented thought dealing not only with issues of new patterns of interaction etc. but also of notions of identity, humanity etc.
Images of the future are littered with multi-layered (mega)cityscapes, highways in the sky, across buildings, underground pipelines for transport of people, data and goods. The main driver? As population increases, people expect space for living, for mobility etc. to decrease below acceptable levels. In other words, the savanna in which our human species grew up and shaped its senses and being, made room for an urban jungle about to suffocate us. If we are not careful and do not start thinking in terms of more sustainable and flexible designs, the fragile balance between ‘the city advantage’ vs. ‘our innate and societal need for space’ risks to tip towards the deep end.
When you lack space you try to compress the things you need the space for, get rid of them entirely or look for space elsewhere as in in the sky, in space, or … underground. According to some, it is one of the only areas of refuge and salvation for sustainable cities in the future. Think: underground construction sites, geothermal energy, groundwater-management, transport, waste-recycling and -upcycling, etc.
Many immediately associate Italy with its Roman, Etruscan past … Yet the Italians have quite a history in future-related stuff as well. Think of the utopian city designs of Paolo Soleri, Marinetti’s futurist movement … or Joe Colombo? The famous Italian designer who died way to young at age 41 designed everything from lighting, to seats, to underground cities, James Bond like environments where screens fold out of the ceiling, climate controlled sleeping cells, pivoting walls etc. Vitra’s exhibition on Joe Colombo’s life and achievements (curated together with the Triennale di Milano and Studio Joe Colombo) has been on tour for almost two years now and is currently on show at the Museum for Decorative Arts in Paris, France.
For those of you still planning their summer city trip or European tour, pay it a visit while you still can.
“The possibilities presented by the extraordinary development of audiovisual processes are enormous … Distances will no longer have much importance; no longer will there be any justification for the ‘megalopolis’ … Furnishings will disappear … the habitat will be everywhere … Now, if the elements necessary to human existence could be planned with the sole requirements of maneuverability and flexibility … , then we would create an inhabitable system that could be adapted to any situation in space and time …”
The city-tour foundation Antwerpen Averechts recently launched a new initiative called the cityLabo. CityLabo wishes to question people’s relationship with their city, to interact with and dialogue with them through various means. How do inhabitants and visitors of the city experience their city of the 21st century? Will it be a safe haven or a grim environment? What does the ideal city look like for a common urban dweller or an urban expert, planner, architect? What could these parties mean to each other?
CityLabo currently organizes an exhibition at the Permeke city library in Antwerp (Belgium), featuring the work of eight young graphic illustrators who draw their future city as they hope, fear, expect it to be.
The convergence of technologies such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, IT & robotics, is a much debated trend in research labs around the world. It is also gaining attention in terms of assessing possible futures because of its potential sociocultural, environmental and political-institutional consequences and societal changes.
The Guardian’s blogs editor Kevin Anderson recently visited a conference at the James Martin Institute at Oxford University, organised by the UK’s Economic & Social Research Council trying to chart a direction for the future of research in the UK, through the exploration of future scenarios. The following scenarios came up:
a world of gridlock, in which converging technologies have led to a segmentation of worldviews, immobilizing it, a world shaped by high-competition, little co-operation and conflicting values. think: genetic screenings and pre-birth offspring selection, conflicting viewpoints on reproductive innovations such as genetic enhancement, etc.
a competitive but regulated world, in which legislation runs behind rapid innovation, in which new developments take place at a fast pace but follow-up is severely lacking, it is aimed at trying to manage and regulate the uncertain future. think: superbabies-’production’ gone wrong, China-subsidized African nanotube-production, climate change effects and turn-around ventures into wind, coal and biofuel energy plants and nano-tech enhanced batteries, etc.
an open, dynamic, co-operative world, in which information is openly shared and public-private cooperation is highly dynamic. think: open-source developed life-extending and -enhancing drugs, charity-driven genetic experiments (e.g.. six-legged horse winning races for needy children), complexity driving development of human-assistive technologies such as neural nets for climate change to help deal with information overload and information noise, etc.
a no-glue world, extremely fluid and dynamic, hyper-competitive. think: highly interdependent complex, pro-active systems (cf. adaptive-profile-based intelligent agents acting in your name), overwhelming complexity and information-noise, virtual world currencies becoming increasingly real-world, manipulative news agencies owned by equity firms, indifference leads to death of terrorism, converging languages (e.g. Arab-Mandarin), virtual identities as important as real ones, etc.
The futures were brought to life by the participants through storylines and newspaper headlines. For more, check out Kevin’s blog post as well as some of the interesting comments.
The Swiss city of Yverdon-les-Bains – where Diller+Scofidio set up their famous blur building during the 2002 Swiss Expo – features a unique museum, called La Maison d’Ailleurs (the House of Elsewhere), dedicated to science fiction, utopia and extraordinary journeys. The museum will soon also feature a Jules Verne Exhibition Space.
Recent exhibitions include the work of our visionary belgian Luc Schuiten (indeed, brother of), photographer Mario del Curto’s, the Blue Man etc.
Currently, (until October 28th 2007) there’s also a fascinating exhibition (incl. lecture series MundAgoras) on the topic of utopias going on at the Mundaneum in Mons (Belgium), titled Utopia, de l’Atlantide aux cités du futur.
Also in Belgium, at the Museum of Fine Arts (BOZAR) in Brussels (until September 16th 2007), sixteen architects and urban designers enrolled at the renowned Berlage Institute in Rotterdam (Netherlands) share with the world their visions of Brussels as a European capital in an exhibition titled A Vision for Brussels: Imagining the Captial of Europe.
The Dutch Waag Society together with CyberspaceSalvations are organizing a series of seminars titled ‘Science fiction, science faction’, dealing with the crossroads between science and science fiction.
On the program for the coming months are (April 11th) cyberpunks RU Sirius and Rudy Rucker, moderated by Giselinde Kuipers, and (May 2nd), the lovely Brenda Laurel, Bruce ‘Avatar’ Damer and Galen Brandt moderated by Christian van ‘t Hof.
Videostreams of the events will be available on KillerTV soon.
Our friend Nicolas over at the ever-insightful PastaAndVinegar, also blogged a line or two about the relationship between science fiction and foresight today, after also spotting this article in Information Week, which quotes John de Lancie (Q in Star Trek) saying:
“today’s technology, whether it’s cell phones or Second Life, is feeding off the fictional technology dreamed up by science fiction writers years ago“
We couldn’t agree more when Nicolas points to the strength of the story in bringing the future to life, increasing its impact and leaving a stronger mark on many people’s minds than traditional ‘futurist’/foresight writings. He correctly arguments:
(a) narratives are good way to give a flavor of the future, of things to come,
(b) Scifi folks write about problems, why things work, do not work, lead to crisis, create social issues (or social issues that create innovation),
(c) they put things in context, [...]
(d) they have their own rules.
To some extent, reading scifi is somehow like opposing “critical foresight” to “futurism”.
Stories form a powerful, subtle, experiential envelope which invite listeners and readers to join in on a co-creation journey to visualize another world. As our experiences show, they are a fantastic tool to render the future ‘experiencable‘ and to get higher qualitative response from people in terms of what the ‘storyboarded’ future awakens in them, emotionally as well as rationally.
PS. For those of you interested in the power of storytelling in an organizational/learning context, you might want to check out Steve Denning‘s books.
Only few days apart two of the world’s probably most inspiring gettogethers have/are taking place, i.e. Doors of Perception in New Delhi, India (this year’s theme: “juice: food, energy & design”) directed by John Thackara and TED in Monterey, California (this year’s heading: “Icons. Geniuses. Mavericks.”) brainchild of Richard Saul Wurman and now curated by Chris Anderson (no, the other one).
Fortunately, for those of us who are unable to attend, several bloggers are covering the events. For example, follow along with TED via Ethan Zuckerman’s inspiring My heart’s in Accra or Bruno Giussani’s excellent LunchOverIP. Do also keep an eye on the TED Talks videos.
This years TED prizes went to Former US president Bill Clinton, photographer James Nachtwey and biologist E.O. Wilson. Read more about their ‘TED wish’ here. Last year’s winner Cameron Sinclair of Architects for Humanity‘Design like you give a damn’ fame saw his wish come through in the launch of the open architecture network.
Several bloggers have also posted about Doors, e.g. various food- and sustainability-related blogs, such as TastyThinking, WorldChanging, etc. but I’m sure much more of its content will pop up across the blogosphere in the coming days and weeks.
The future of our world depends upon a variety of uncertainties, including the extent to which we will manage to lead more sustainable lives. Sustainability is no longer an academic discussion, but an actionable must for each and every one of us. There are various ways to go about it and part of the persuasion picture is definitely through social innovation.
Design of the time 2007 - or dott07 in short – is a project set in North East England which not only aims to shed light upon this but also to try and set things in motion by initiating and funding several real-world projects. Directed by John ‘Doors of Perception’ Thackara, dott 07 is …
“an initiative of the Design Council and the regional development agency, One NorthEast” … “[it] enables communities and individuals in North East England to collaborate with designers in real-life situations. These projects are small but important examples of what life in a sustainable region might be like.
Dott 07 projects set out to improve six aspects of daily life in practical ways. They deal with health issues, food, school, energy, tourism, and travel. “
Knowing John as a master networker and one of the best moderators out there, I can assure you that the twelve-day Dott07 festival which will sum up a year of dott07 in October of this year, will be an event to look forward to.
One of the beauties of the pantopical viewpoint is that it reflects the wonderful diversity of ways in which people look at the future of certain aspects of their lives and express them in terms of their dreams, nightmares, expectations, wonderings … As such, following our participatory approach, breathing life into the future by visualizing one’s views on it, is something we like to do – and find important to do so – also beyond the boundaries of our day-to-day projects with customers in the public and private realm.
Therefore, after a long hiatus we decided to kickstart our FFWD>> competition again to involve you (yes, also you) in showcasing this diversity of views on the future. So we would hereby like to invite all you photoshoppers, mattepainting fans and visually creative minds out there, to participate in a new series of FFWD>> events. Current theme: education. How do you think education might look 20 years from now? Share with us a look through your mind’s eye.
Feel free to browse previous entries in the FFWD>> archive.
The MIT’s Department of Urban Studies & Planning together with the Center for International Studies is organizing a vision competition and problem-solving project to envision Jerusalem anno 2050:
By bringing together Palestinian and Israeli scholars, activists, business leaders, youth, and others, it seeks to understand what it would take to make Jerusalem , a city also known as Al Quds, claimed by two nations and central to three religions, a place of diversity and peace in which contending ideas and citizenries can co-exist in benign, yet creative, ways.
The project uniting in a sense creative thinking, design thinking (hopefully not only top-down spatially) and futures thinking, is described as a challenge for all to move beyond today’s binary logics often employed to address and assess the city of Jerusalem. As such one might describe the project also as a search for ‘third alternatives’, an approach not uncommon in futures thinking.
Beginning November, in the Liverpool area, BBC 3 Radio organized the fascinating Festival of Free Thinking with ‘the future’ as its central theme. A broad mix of people, ranging from academics and entrepreneurs, to advocates and cultural observers, thought freely about what might be next for technology and society, religion, urban planing, biotechnology, the UK, etc. Musical grandmaster and long time long term thinker Brian Eno (also of Long Now Foundation fame) gave the opening keynote.
Even electronic billboards were included in the crossmedial mix to engage a broad audience in the event. Future-related themes, discussed in the lectures or in lively pub discussions were transformed into fictional commercials for future products, future press releases etc. to be broadcasted on these e-billboards. These future designs, experiences were carefully crafted by IFTF’s Research and Design Manager, Jason Tester, and his team, who described it as “one of the most challenging experiments I’ve faced in the new discipline of futures design”. The reason was simple: there’s a big difference between an audience in context (e.g. a futures study) and an audience of random passers-by. Nevertheless, the creative results are definitely worth taking a look at.
At Pantopicon we like to see ‘futures design’ as an instance of experience design. One does not merely shape a ‘thing’, but an experiential envelope in which people will be wrapped and with(in) which they will interact. Futures design as are futures studies, are all about context in the first place, context not merely on a content-level, but also a communication level. Last but not least, every day we experience how useful it is to look at design as an attitude, an approach, with methods and techniques, also in terms of analysis of a situation, rather than in the traditional view of a ‘discipline of shaping things’. As such, and in many other ways, it blends seamlessly with futures studies, foresight and envisioning exercises.
Via IFTF’s Future Now
Tomorrow, under the auspices of the Club of Amsterdam, a conference will take place in Amsterdam titled “Food Design“. Another testimony of how design as a discipline, but more importantly as a mindset and attitude, has an enormous and increasing impact on all aspects of our lives and not only from an engineering or marketing perspective. According to the organizers of the Food Design conference:
“This event is going to highlight three influential aspects: a) aesthetics from a consumer perspective, b) innovative food products and c) design supporting senses and a good time.”
The success of each recipe depends in part on its ingredients. Via a documentary titled Future of Food Deborah Garcia Koons, tries to reach out and inform us (mainly) about the dangers of genetically modified organisms and food, and the business surrounding it.
On an inspirational note, let me also point you to the creative outbursts of Addictlab, our former office neighbours, who recently spent an entire issue of their must-have LabFiles on chocolate (Belgian of course!) and also published a whole “inspiration book” on food (research theme n°23).
For about two years already we have been a core partner in setting up “Plan C”, a transition management experiment in Flanders, aimed at catalyzing the societal shift to a world in which materials are managed in a sustainable way.
Our 
From February 1st until March 30th, 
Images of the future are littered with multi-layered (mega)cityscapes, highways in the sky, across buildings, underground pipelines for transport of people, data and goods. The main driver? As population increases, people expect space for living, for mobility etc. to decrease below acceptable levels. In other words, the savanna in which our human species grew up and shaped its senses and being, made room for an urban jungle about to suffocate us. If we are not careful and do not start thinking in terms of more sustainable and flexible designs, the fragile balance between ‘the city advantage’ vs. ‘our innate and societal need for space’ risks to tip towards the deep end.
Many immediately associate Italy with its Roman, Etruscan past … Yet the Italians have quite a history in future-related stuff as well. Think of the utopian city designs of Paolo Soleri, Marinetti’s futurist movement … or 
The city-tour foundation 
The convergence of technologies such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, IT & robotics, is a much debated trend in research labs around the world. It is also gaining attention in terms of assessing possible futures because of its potential sociocultural, environmental and political-institutional consequences and societal changes.
The Swiss city of Yverdon-les-Bains – where Diller+Scofidio set up their famous 
The Dutch 
Only few days apart two of the world’s probably most inspiring gettogethers have/are taking place, i.e. 
The future of our world depends upon a variety of uncertainties, including the extent to which we will manage to lead more sustainable lives. Sustainability is no longer an academic discussion, but an actionable must for each and every one of us. There are various ways to go about it and part of the persuasion picture is definitely through social innovation.
One of the beauties of the 
The MIT’s Department of Urban Studies & Planning together with the Center for International Studies is organizing a vision competition and problem-solving 
Beginning November, in the Liverpool area, BBC 3 Radio organized the fascinating 
Also in the area of food, one of our most basic needs, the world is changing. Think about Italy’s world famous 